Australian idols

Getting a contract with a company at Milan's annual
furniture fair can be a career-defining moment for young Australian
designers.

A contract with a leading European or Asian manufacturer is the
dream for most Australian designers. So this means regular trips to
the annual furniture fair in Milan are a necessity.

Whether it's forming relationships with companies such as
Alessi, Edra, Progetti and Oluce, or exhibiting under the same roof
as Philippe Starck and Jasper Morrison, finding success takes time,
money and talent. In the 1990s, designers such as Marc Newson and
Susan Cohn were signing with companies such as Alessi; now a new
wave of Australian designers is putting signatures to paper.

Marcel Sigel and Alana Di Giacomo established their design
company Zuii in 2004, a couple of years after graduating from
Curtin University of Technology in Perth. In 2004, the duo
exhibited prototypes for several designs in Milan, including a
candle holder, two lights and a chair. The products didn't attract
a manufacturer but their designs received magazine coverage.
Christopher Yong, creative director of Malaysia's Royal Selangor
pewter, contacted Zuii.

"The next thing we knew we were on a plane [and] handed a
commission to design a range of a dozen objects for the table:
bowls, vases, a tray, salt and pepper shakers and candle holders,"
Sigel says.

Architect Brian Steendyk first showed his furniture designs in
Milan in 2003 at the Salone del Mobile. His Cero stool, as well as
his Sub Cero (designed for children), found a market in Australia,
with Space Furniture, and with overseas manufacturers, as has his
latest seat, Scoot.

The seat, produced as a limited fibreglass edition in Australia,
is being manufactured by Italian company Serralunga.

"I was inspired by the Vespa, with its seat chiselled
backwards," says Steendyk, who compares his design to a hybrid
between the Butterfly stools designed by Sori Yanagi in the 1950s
and Verner Panton's Stacking Chair of the 1960s.

It will be launched at the Milan fair next year. "Each trip
costs up to $10,000," Steendyk says. "You make as many contacts as
possible. Emails and phone calls from Australia aren't the way to
establish a relationship."

Simone LeAmon has made seven trips to Milan. "You have to be a
designer, a business person and perform your own PR. It's a lonely
journey; you need to be kind to yourself," says LeAmon, who is the
first woman and the first Australian to sign with one of Italy's
established companies, Oluce.

LeAmon was ready to sign contracts with two other leading
Italian companies. "My designs were taken outside the realm of the
creative directors and into a general board meeting. It was just
not the right time for them or, in their opinion, the product,"
LeAmon says.

Fortunately, LeAmon's Bailey's Beads lights - named after
Francis Bailey, the ast­ronomer - were signed by Oluce. LeAmon
expects royalties from mid-2007.

"People have said I've been lucky. I'm told that I'm an
overnight success. But I've been practising for 14 years," she
says.

Helen Kontouris also recently had success - Italian lighting
company Kundalini has taken up her lighting design, known as the La
La Lamp. Kontouris had made several pilgrimages to the Milan
furniture fair, as a visitor and exhibitor.

"In 2004, one of the owners of Kundalini walked past my lamp and
took a few notes. I was contacted by the company a few days later,"
says Kontouris, who graduated in interior design from Victoria's
RMIT University in 1995.

"There are so many designers and only an extremely small
percentage make it. But the first signing lifts your
confidence."